Strange times indeed. Past two mornings I’ve been drinking tea out of my Union Jack (it was bought on a boat) mug; I’ve been rooting for “us”. Finds out not long ago, “we” won a Calcutta cup. This is nothing to do with haircuts, is it?
Strange times indeed. Past two mornings I’ve been drinking tea out of my Union Jack (it was bought on a boat) mug; I’ve been rooting for “us”. Finds out not long ago, “we” won a Calcutta cup. This is nothing to do with haircuts, is it?
Boadicea's Chariot 
Not only did we win the Calcutta Cup, we won it at Twickenham! And this after Eddie Jones had stated that Scotland wouldn’t withstand the pressure. Aye, right!
Hi Sheona, I don’t know EJ but he sounds like a roaster. Caught the last two minutes while channel zapping. Mildly happy.
Was always under the impression rugger was the national sport of Wales. The lack of a vowel seemed to confirm this. Shouldn’t the proper spelling be Rugbay, by the by?
Well, I said earlier I had done with the internet as a medium for disseminating one’s ideas.
But the UK’s Daily Express has given a mention of my new thinking (some 8 years in the making) on Stonehenge and its predecessors.
Forgive me if I flag it up here, if only, er, to interrupt the silence …
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1401630/stonehenge-neolithic-farmers-wales-salisbury-wiltshire-bbc-archaeology-news-spt
Very brave of you to post the link, Colin, considering the reception your theory has received in the comment section of the DE. I imagine Pagans and Druids will be very agitated to learn that they have been worshipping in the wrong church. I have never been to Stonehenge, though I have driven past it several times.
We have a similar mystery in this country with respect to the Zimbabwe Ruins. The current regime insists it was built by the indigenous people, but given the complete lack of supporting infrastructure and evidence of cultural progress, I have strong doubts. Much more likely to have been built by Arab slave traders or rather gold traders, since we now know that it was only West Europeans who engaged in slavery.
Yes, I did have a brief glance at the comments in the Express. Most are water off a duck’s back where I’m concerned.
Why?
Some 35 years ago, I stood in front of a Kellogg’s symposium in London, and stated the following: the best way to make enzyme-resistant starch (with dietary fibre like behaviour in the human bowel) was not to waste time trying to get regular long chain starch to crystallize. The trick was to take branched chain starch (amylopectin as distinct from straight chain amylose) and treat it with a starch-debranching enzyme that reduced to it to small straight-chain fragments, then cook up the latter to make them crystallize.
One of Britain’s top starch specialists got to his feet and basically called me nutter for making so fatuous a claim.
“Resistant starch comprising “short chains”? Are you a complete nutter?”
Fast forward, and one finds that patents have since been taken out on my starch-debranching procedure for manufacturing resistant starch in quantity (typical yields 30-35%!)
That was just one experience which helped develop that absolute necessity if one’s to operate as scientist thinking out of the box, blazing new trails – a thick skin is needed in the early days, given the reception given generally to alien new ideas.
My “defence against arrows’ model for English henges with their outer banks (as distinct from outer ditch for the forerunner “causewayed enclosure”) is a model that is expanding by the day. Express journo Callum Hoare is being kept informed! The outer banks were installed once flint-tipped arrows became the prime weapon deployed by the enemy (indigenous hunter-gatherers etc) in their attempt to seize one’s precious livestock.
See the internet entry for the late Neolithic Crickley Hill near Cheltenham – with its reference to the construction of a stout stone wall around the hamlet using material from an adjacent ditch.
Click to access Crickley%2520Hill%2520history%2520panels%2520GCC%5B1%5D.pdf
Why? See the reference to 400 flint arrow heads having rained down! It’s anyone’s guess as to whether livestock remained protected, tethered behind the barricade!
Model for Stonehenge – at least in its early days? I say YES!!!!
Which all goes to show that “following the science” is not always the sensible option despite what the gurus at SAGE would have us believe. Sometimes, as you demonstrated 35 years ago, the science is wrong; or at least the scientists are wrong.
Anyway, I hope you profited out of your discovery.
“Anyway, I hope you profited out of your discovery.”
Nope. Years later I came across the patent application, taken out by a Chinese national at a Midwest university in the States. I wrote a letter of protest – asking why I had not been consulted – far less offered a share of any royalties – and got back an offhand reply that basically said zilch. I let the matter drop…
Don’t wish to bore you folks. But have earlier today supplied an explanation on my sciencebuzz site for Stonehenge’s mysterious circle of 56 complete circle (long-vacated!) Aubrey Holes (aka pits – the latter supplying the clue – pits – not compact and tidy holes).
https://colinb-sciencebuzz.blogspot.com/2021/02/an-entirely-new-explanation-for.html
Clue: the pits are just a short way INSIDE the outer main chalk embankment – offering best shelter for re-tethered livestock against, guess what?- sudden arrival of incoming enemy arrows.
Callum Hoare (Daily Express) has been informed of this new addition to the “livestock protection” model for the original Stonehenge.
Will try now to leave matters to Callum Hoare and his MSM – being thoroughly disillusioned with the modern-day internet as a medium for communicating new ideas to the world at large. 😦